Posted
by
Zonk
on Friday February 02, 2007 @05:46PM
from the you-seem-malnourished-are-you-suffering-from-internal-parasites- dept.

Joel Keller writes "When I was at the Television Critics Association press tour earlier last month, I briefly talked to Matt Groening about Futurama's comeback. I posted the interview to TV Squad a couple of days ago. The man behind the Simpsons and Futurama talks about the latter's comeback, the fun of doing sci-fi in a comedy format, and a few words about the first episode to air on Comedy Central."

One of my better drunk stories is when I barked that back at my friend's dad when he poked his head in to tell us to quiet down and to say good night.
Friend's Dad: "Uhh, goodnight boys, keep it down"
Me: "WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!"
I think he's still confused to this day.

Whenever a story about Futurama comes up, everyone always wonders, will the original writers and cast come back? David Cohen answers that [wizarduniverse.com]

We have the entire cast back, as well as a good chunk of the writing staff. We also have Rough Draft Studios animating once again, and they seem determined to top even their own amazing work from the first time around. To complete the reunion of our original crack team, it looks like we will also have Chris Tyng back to work his magic on the musical score.

Is there a single Sci-fi movie, book, or TV series they DIDN'T lampoon in the first four seasons? The Fry-Leela love story ran its complete arc. Every character did everything people do in their 20s. Even the hottie trust fund chick is spoken for. Did I miss something?

Is there a single Sci-fi movie, book, or TV series they DIDN'T lampoon in the first four seasons? The Fry-Leela love story ran its complete arc. Every character did everything people do in their 20s. Even the hottie trust fund chick is spoken for. Did I miss something?

Is there anything Futurama can't lampoon? As long as the characters keep their clichés funny and not annoying, they can time travel or visit alternate universes or just old new york to lampoon whatever they want. It's a funny and scathing social commentary like any of the great satirists have done, but with animated characters to do it because exposition doesn't work quite so well on TV as it does in books.

I don't know if you read the Article (lol), but let me quote it for you:

Groening and the show's executive producer, David X. Cohen, were happy that the demand was there, because they both felt they had more to say. "Not that I think our show is like Star Trek, but (the original) Star Trek didn't last that long, but it went on and on and on (after it was cancelled). And David Cohen and I talked about it; we had so many story ideas and so many characters that we hadn't gotten around to introducing yet. So I'm so pleased.

You could have said what you said after the first two seasons, but there are so many awesome episodes in season 3 and 4 it proves you wrong (The Sting, Jurassic Bark, The Luck of the Fryish, Godfellas..).Futurama has gotten better and better.

And thank God. Every time I watch that episode and I see Seymour wait for all those years then finally just lower his head to die my heart sinks. A powerful image, to be sure, but I just don't feel right after the show. Luckily, watching on the DVD you can just go to the next or to the previous (Bender should not be allowed on TV).

Whiiipii Ka'yeeeee.... Let the cyclope dump the puny earthling, bender kill all humans, the doctor invent a dark-hole (NOTE: note a "black" one, just a really dark one:-)), the limbo-dancer break his back in the sake of sillyness, and the aristrocrat:ish marsian merry the slimy alien...

Whiipii Ka'yeee... ze'R Baaakk !!!:-)

..Now, all fan's of the show, let's break-dance like bender... till the werecar runs us over:-)

Comedy Central censors the "god" in goddamn even after 11pm. The Colbert Report even referenced this once with a bullet point during The Word. I truly have no fucking clue why they do that, but have no problem airing South Park episodes like Scott Tenorman Must Die [wikipedia.org] essentially uncensored. They're not bound by FCC rules.

They did one episode of South Park in normal prime time with a hundred-whatever 'shit's in it. If they put Futurama on at 10 (and given their success with South Park, Futurama should probably either have its own 10 o'clock night or follow S.P.) the should be able to say whatever they want.
But you never know. The initial release of the South Park DVDs bleeped out 'dirty jew', so who knows where they'll be censor-wise on the broadcasts.

You do realize that the vast majority of Firefly-obsessed geeks had never heard of it until many months after it got canned, yes? I certainly hadn't; I heard about it about a month before Serenity came out.

I loved Futurama, but I loved Simpsons and Family Guy as well...Season 13, Simpsons jumped the shark, and turned into pointless, mindless, painfully un-funny crap, and Groening has done interview after interview saying how he thinks the show is better than even now, even though the ratings have dropped.

Family Guy was hilarious originally, but after Fox brought it back, there hasn't been one good episode. It's really a rip-off, by someone who didn't understand why the original was funny to begin with.

It's coming back on Comedy Central, not Fox. Big difference there, and maybe why it won't suck as much as Family Guy. Remember, it's the Futurama writers and cast that wanted the show back and decided to go to Comedy Central (after negotiations failed with Fox). This is not another case of Fox producers trying to "milk out" the show's fans.

I'll be blasting all the curmudgeons in the world!
I'll be blasting all the curmudgeons in the world.
I'll be blasting all the curmudgeons,I'll be blasting all the curmudgeons,I'll be blasting all the curmudgeons in the world.

I hate sports as much as the next dork but seriously, if you were a network executive and you had to choose between a guaranteed ratings grabber like FOOTBALL!! or a moderately successful science fiction cartoon which way would you go?

I'd have a second network for showing all my good shows so that I wouldn't have to preempt them and then cancel them due to the subsequent poor ratings. That or put them on in the time slots of my crappy shows that will be on for 10 years despite sucking because the American television watching public will watching anything regardless of quality.

Are you referring to Malcom in the Middle? That's what I immediately think of when thinking of Futurama's cancellation. It took the 8:30 timeslot after Simpsons from Futurama and god did it suck (and for years). But Fox kept it going on and on and on. . .

It did have some pretty good stories now and then. It kind of makes me think of what you'd get if you cross-bred the writers of The Adventures of Pete and Pete with sane people. (When I say the writers of APP were not sane, I mean that in a good way).

I hate sports as much as the next dork but seriously, if you were a network executive and you had to choose between a guaranteed ratings grabber like FOOTBALL!! or a moderately successful science fiction cartoon which way would you go?

Well, I'd consider that the deal with the NFL is finite, and next time it is up for negotiation, it might move to another network. And then I'd consider the ton of money that The Simpsons has made for the network, and continues to make after almost two decades, and realize

And for the slot that gets stomped on by football? A couple things come to mind....
I vote they just write the script for football games better so that they will always fit in their allotted timeframe.
Either that or always pad the length of the game, and adjust the amount of time that the reminiscing ex-football players prattle on after the game is over, such that the next scheduled show can always start on time.

I hate sports as much as the next dork but seriously, if you were a network executive and you had to choose between a guaranteed ratings grabber like FOOTBALL!! or a moderately successful science fiction cartoon which way would you go?

Ironically, in everyday life, I don't run into hardcore football fans. Do they exist?, or is it all a marketing myth trying to turn everyone into fans by hyping up football. Most folks I know only watch the superbowl 'cause of the commercials (not the game).

Well, I don't think the ratings are a myth. Or the revenues. Or the attendances. Granted a lot of people watch the Superbowl for the commercials, but a lot of people watch all the other NFL games as well. And those college games with 100k+ people in the stadium...

I hate sports as much as the next dork but seriously, if you were a network executive and you had to choose between a guaranteed ratings grabber like FOOTBALL!! or a moderately successful science fiction cartoon which way would you go?

If I were a network executive, I wouldn't expect any program I run whenever football isn't available to do as well as football or any other show with a consistent time slot.

I haven't seen a lot of Family Guy, but I saw it as "joke on the horizon flashing it's lights wildly - joke arrives but you already know what it is - joke stays for an extra agonising minute as the character sings the second verse of the song the initially funny reference was to so that everyone will catch the pop reference". To me it seemed as pointless as "Man In The Moon" which seemed to be about how funny racist jokes are if you pretend it's about a country that doesn't exist - there's something in some brands of US humor I don't get. Simpsons, Futurama, Marx Bros, Chaplin and most of Mel Brooks is the stuff I can see as funny.

a) 'culture' ne 'race'. For instance to mock the Poles is not racist. Bigoted?
Sure. Racist? No.b) You clearly do not get Andy Kauffman, which is really what "Man on the Moon"
was about. But that's fine, most people don't, and even those who do don't
necessarily dig all his material.

The problem is, that was only funny the first time they did it, not the next fifty. I'm convinced that they only made Family Guy series 4+ because they were told to, rather than because they had any ideas.

Similarly, the Simpsons has outstayed its welcome by around a decade. I don't think Futurama should come back, there's a lot to be said for ending a show when it's still good.

yeah that was actually pretty clever i thought, i love the self referencing stuff... when they were brought back after being cancelled; the scene's set just as peter breaks the news to lois that the show's been cancelled, she asks if there's any hope, peter lists all the tv shows on the network, and says "well if all those shows go down the tube, we might be in with a shot!"

Family Guy, I think, could be a lot better than it is if only the writers would grow up. They really do have some funny stuff, but the problem is every other joke is a sex joke that can only possible entertain prepubescent boys and idiots. Sex jokes are like deep fried foods: in moderation, they're not necessarily bad, but overused, they can ruin the show. If the writers would just quit watering it down with the same crap idiots have been giggling about since junior high, the show would have a much highe